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Overview
The International Human Rights Exchange (IHRE) is the world’s only full-semester, multidisciplinary program in human rights. Each semester, undergraduate students and faculty from Southern Africa, North America, and other regions of the world come together to participate in a deep and multi-faceted intellectual engagement with human rights.
The IHRE program is housed at the University of the Witwatersrand (also known as Wits) in Johannesburg, South Africa and is a joint venture with Bard College.
IHRE inspires and activates students by advancing their knowledge and experience of human rights. Program activities include:
- Rigorous and thought-provoking classes taught in a seminar style, including a core course on the international human rights framework and a practicum on human rights advocacy;
- A multidisciplinary selection of elective courses, connecting human rights concerns to: development, gender, and culture; literature, media, and theatre; philosophy, politics and social work;
- A hands-on, mentored internship with a leading NGO working on the frontlines of social change;
- Guest lectures offered by leading luminaries in the human rights field;
- An exploration of human rights challenges off-campus through human rights workshops, visits to key sites such as Soweto and the Apartheid Museum, and other cultural activities; and
- Membership in a diverse and global community of students and scholars committed to human rights.
IHRE believes that the subject of human rights provides an excellent framework for realizing the goal of liberal education. The program aims to provide a challenging and rewarding experience by: enabling critical and creative thinking about human rights: developing a democratic understanding of people’s role in society; linking academic work with activism, advocacy, and building a culture of human rights; implementing student-centered learning; and establishing relationships of equality, mutuality, and exchange among participants.
We seek to promote a critical understanding of human rights as part of a broad intellectual and social movement, not simply as a code or set of laws. We believe that human rights is a discourse in transformation (and often in contest) that is best understood through a multidisciplinary approach extending to the humanities, social sciences, arts, and sciences.
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